I am open, really I am, to the idea that the Race and Ethnicity studies programs—usually free-floating, “interdisciplinary” hybrids—needn’t be focused exclusively on inculcating political activism and exhortations to seek “social justice” for the oppressed, the downtrodden, the victims of the System.
It can be done, I just have to believe that it can. Surely there’s got to be plenty of solid work available by ethnographers, sociologists, historians, musicologists, anthropologists, etc., to put together a rigorous first-rate major that stimulates and rewards inquiring undergraduate minds.
But then I happened to read this recent column by an RES major at pricey, top-of-the-line Stanford.
Well, I still think it’s a nice idea, don’t you agree?
